God's Good Man - Marie Corelli (i want to read a book .txt) š
- Author: Marie Corelli
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Taking in the whole picture of nature, youth and beauty, as it was set against the pure background of the sky, Walden realised that he was expected to say something,āin fact, he had been called upon to say something every year at this time, but he had never been able to conquer the singular nervousness which always overcame him on such occasions. It is one thing to preach from a pulpit to an assembled congregation who are prepared for orthodoxy and who are ready to listen with more or less patience to the expounding of the same,ā but it is quite another to speak to a number of girls and boys all full of mirth and mischief, and as ready for a frolic as a herd of young colts in a meadow. Especially when it happens that most of the girls are pretty, and when, as a clergyman and director of souls, one is conscious that the boys are more or less all in love with the girls,āthat one is a bachelor,āgetting on in years too;āand that- chiefest of all-it is May-morning! One may perhaps be conscious of a contraction at the heart,āa tightening of the throat,āeven a slight mist before the eyes may tease and perplex such an oneāwho knows? A flash of lost youth may sting the memory,āa boyish craving for love and sympathy may stir the blood, and may make the gravest parsonās speech incoherent,āfor after all, even a minister of the Divine is but a man.
At any rate the Reverend John found it difficult to begin. The round forget-me-not eyes of Baby Hippolyta stared into his face with relentless persistency,āthe velvet pansy-coloured ones of Susie Prescott smiled confidingly up at him with a bewildering youthfulness and unconsciousness of charm; and the mischief-loving small boys and village yokels who stood grouped against the Maypole like rough fairy foresters guarding magic timber, were, with all the rest of the children, hushed into a breathless expectancy, waiting eagerly for āPassonā to speak. And āPassonā thereupon began,āin the lamest, feeblest, most paternally orthodox manner:
āMy dear childrenāā
āHooray! Hooray! Three cheers for āPassonā! Hooray!ā
Wild whooping followed, and the Maypole rocked uneasily, and began to slant downward in a drunken fashion, like a convivial giant whom strong wine has made doubtful of his footing.
āTake care, you young rascals!ā cried Walden, letting sentiment, orthodoxy and eloquence go to the winds,āāYou will have the whole thing down!ā
Peals of gay laughter responded, and the nodding mass of bloom was swiftly pulled up and assisted to support its necessary horizontal dignity. But here Baby Hippolyta suddenly created a diversion. Moved perhaps by the consciousness of her own beauty, or by the general excitement around her, she suddenly waved a miniature branch of hawthorn and emitted a piercing yell.
āPasson! Tum āere! Passon! Tum āere!ā
There was no possibility of āholding forthā after this. A. short address on the brevity of life, as being co-equal with the evanescent joys of a Maypole, would hardly serve,āand a fatherly ambition as to the unbecoming attitude of mendi-cancy assumed by independent young villagers carrying a great crown of flowers round to every house in the neighbourhood, and demanding pence for the show, would scarcely be popular. Because what did the āMayersā Song say:
āThe Heavenly gates are opened wide, Our paths are beaten plain; And if a man be not too far gone, He may return again.ā
And the āHeavenly gatesā of Spring being wide open, the Reverend John, thought his special path was ābeaten plainā for the occasion; and not being ātoo far goneā either in bigotry or lack of heart, John did what he reverently imagined the Divine Master might have done when He ātook a little child and set it in the midst.ā He obeyed Baby Hippolytaās imperious command, and to her again loudly reiterated āPasson! Tum āere!ā he sprang forward and caught her up in his arms, kissing her rosy cheeks heartily as he did so. Seated in āhigh exalted stateā upon his shoulder. āIpsieā became Hippolyta in good earnest, so thoroughly aware was she of her dignity, while, holding her as lightly and buoyantly as he would have held a bird, the Reverend John turned his smiling face on his young parishioners.
āCome along, boys and girls!ā he exclaimed,āāCome and plant the Maypole in the big meadow yonder, as you did last year! It is a holiday for us all to-day,āfor me as well as for you! It has always been a holiday even before the days when great Elizabeth was Queen of England, and though many dear old customs have fallen into disuse with the changing world, St. Rest has never yet been robbed of its May-day festival! Be thankful for that, children!āand come along;ā but move carefully!ākeep order,āand sing as you come!ā
Whereupon Susie Prescott lifted up her pretty voice again and her hazel wand baton at the same moment, and started the chorus with the verse:
āWe have been rambling all this night, And almost all this day; And now returning back again, We bring you in the May!ā
And thus carolling, they passed through the garden moving meadow- wards, Walden at the head of the procession,āand Baby Hippolyta seated on his shoulder, was so elated with the gladsome sights and sounds, that she clasped her chubby arms round āPassonāsā neck and kissed him with a fervour that was as fresh and delightful as it was irresistibly comic.
Bainton, making his way along the southern wall of the orchard, to take a āglance roundā as he termed it, at the condition of the wall fruit-trees before his master joined him on the usual morning tour of inspection, stopped and drew aside to watch the merry procession winding along under the brown stems dotted with thousands of red buds splitting into pink-and-white bloom; and a slow smile moved the furrows of his face upward in various pleasant lines as he saw the āPassonā leading it with a light step, carrying the laughing āIpsieā on his shoulder, and now and again joining in the āMayersā Songā with a mellow baritone voice that warmed and sustained the whole chorus.
āThere āe goes!ā he said half aloudāāJesā like a boy!āfor all the wurrld like a boy! I reckon āeās got the secret oā never growinā old, for all that āis āairās turninā a bit grey. āOw many passons in this āere neighbrood would carry the children like that, I wonder? Not one on āem!āthough thereās a many to pick anā choose fromāa darned sight too many if you axes my opinion! Old Putty Leveson, wiās bobbinā anā āis bowinās to the eastāhor!āhor!āhor!āa fine east āeās got in āis mouldy preachinā barn, wiā a whitewashed wall anā a dirty bit oā tinsel fixed up agin itāhe wouldnāt touch a child oā ourn, to save āis lifeāthough āeās got three or four mean, lyinā pryinā brats of āis own runninā wild about the place as might jest as well āave never been born. And as for Francis Anthony, the āigh pontiff oā Riversford, wiās big altar-cloak embrided for āim by all the poor skinny spinsters wot aināt never āad no chance to marryāāeād see all the children blowed to bits under the walls of Jericho to the sound oā the trumpets afore āeād touch āem! Talk oā saints!āIām not very good at unnerstanninā that kind oā folk, not seeinā myself āowever a saint could manage to get on in this mortal wurrld; but I reckon to think thereās a tollable imitation oā the real article in Passon Waldenāthe jolly sort oā saint, oā coorse,ā not the prayinā, whininā, snuffinā kind. āEās been doinā nothinā but good ever since āe came āere, which māappen partly from āis not beinā married. If āeād gotten a wife, the place would aā been awsome different. Not but wot āe aināt a bit cranky over āis, flowers āisself. But Iād rather āave āim fussinā round than a petticut arter me. A petticut at āomeās enough, anā I aināt complaininā on it, though itās a bit breezy sometimes,ābut a petticut in the gardāninā line would drive me main wildāit would reely now!ā
And still smiling with perfect complacency, he watched the Maypole being carried carefully along the space of grass left open between the fruit trees on either side of the orchard, and followed its bright patch of colour and the childrenās faces and forms around it, till it entirely disappeared among the thicker green of a clump of elms that bordered the ābig meadow,ā which Walden generally kept clear of both crops and cattle for the benefit of the village sports and pastimes.
He was indeed the only land-owner in the district who gave any consideration of this kind to the needs of the people. St. Rest was surrounded on all sides by several large private properties, richly wooded, and possessing many acres of ploughed and pasture land, but there was no public right-of-way across any single one of them, and every field, every woodland path, every tempting dell was rigidly fenced and guarded from āvulgarā intrusion. None of the proprietors of these estates, however, appeared to take the least personal joy or pride in their possessions. They were for the most part away in London for āthe seasonā or abroad āoutā of the season,āand their extensive woods appeared to exist chiefly for the preservation of game, reared solely to be shot by a few idle louts of fashion during September and October, and also for the convenience and support of a certain land agent, one Oliver Leach, who cut down fine old timber whenever he needed money, and thought it advisable to pocket the proceeds of such devastation.
Scarcely in one instance out of a hundred did the actual owners of property miss the trees sufficiently to ask what had become of them. So long as the game was all right, they paid little heed to the rest. The partridges and the pheasants thrived, and so did Mr. Oliver Leach. He enjoyed, however, the greatest unpopularity of any man in the neighbourhood, which was some small comfort to those who believed in the laws of compensation and justice. Bainton was his particular enemy for one, and Baintonās master, John Walden, for another. His long-practised āknavish tricksā and the malicious delight he took in trying to destroy or disfigure the sylvan beauty of the landscape by his brutish ignorance of the art of forestry, combined with his own personal greed, were beginning to be well- known in St. Rest, and it is very certain that on May-morning when the youngsters of the village were abroad and, to a great extent, had it all their own way, (aided and abetted in that way by the recognised authority of the place, the minister himself,) he would never have dared to show his hard face and stiffly upright figure anywhere, lest he should be unmercifully āguyedā without a chance of rescue or appeal.
With the disappearance of the Maypole into the further meadow, Bainton likewise disappeared on his round of
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